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Annabeth wakes to orange skies and a what sounds like the hoots of an owl. Everyone else is still sleeping and if she’s quick, she can get the bracelet back before anyone even notices she left. But something else is wrong, they went to sleep in the middle of the woods. Now it’s mountains all around. She should wake Thalia and Luke up, they’ll know what to do.
There is the hooting again. A little owl sits on a branch relatively close to the rune of pan. But still, it feels like it is outside in a way. The small animal flaps its wings and it has the bracelet in its beak.
Owls, what does she know about owls. Their eye colors mean something, they almost glide silently through the air and are a symbol of her mother. But Luke said. Maybe he isn’t completely right? They have different parents after all and maybe she’ll help more.
“Is that for me?” Annabeth asks. She needs to be sure before she wakes the others. Thalia and Luke have always been there for her and now she can be there for them. The owl seems to nod but hops further down the branch, just out of her reach when she tries to grab the bracelet. Annabeth takes a step closer, but the owl moves again and again.
A bit further and she is out of the area the rune protects, it’s almost visible as a greenish line on the ground. Where the plants start to look very different. Annabeth stops. If she leaves it will be fine, she doesn’t even have to go far. Just reach the owl and grab the bracelet. But the thing feels off in a way, as if she is being watched. Better to wake the others.
“Are you sure about this? Your friends look like they need the rest.” A woman stands near the end of the branch, she is very tall and the owl nuzzles into the space between her neck and shoulder. “This is yours, isn’t it?”
She holds out one hand with the bracelet in it. But like the owl she doesn’t enter the sanctuary.
Annabeth nods. “Don’t try anything, we can take care of ourselves.”
The woman’s yellow eyes seem to glance towards the others. Her clothes look old, like really old. Or maybe she is a bridesmaid at a themed wedding. No. Maybe. But Luke said they don’t care and he’s not a liar. Sending a bracelet back is different than showing up like this.
“I can believe that. But you don’t have to,” the woman says. She sits down in a crouch. “It is not right.”
“We are fine,” Annabeth argues and leaves it at that. Grover is no threat and she doesn’t know who this woman is for sure but something about her seems familiar. But if she is wrong then she’ll feel dumb for even considering it.
“And I trust they have taken care of you well.” Her hand now hovers right at the line, still offering the bracelet. “But that is my responsibility, not that of other children.”
“You’re Athena,” Annabeth finally lets herself state.
She has to tell Luke about this, they have one of the gods on their side. This shouldn’t be possible but it’s great. There will be no need to worry about anything else. Maybe she was just busy with god stuff but now she isn’t. Her mother smiles and somehow its like looking into a mirror in a way. How could she ever think it was anyone else.
“Better take this before you wake them, wouldn’t want them to know you lost it.” Athena winks.
Annabeth reaches out to take the bracelet but freezes. “Why don’t you just come inside the sanctuary?” It’s probably more comfortable with all the moss and amount of grass.
“That’s part of Pan’s domain. Gods are beholden to each other to a certain degree. I’d like to join you but everyone currently inside would have to allow it and well let’s give your friends a reason to trust me first.”
Annabeth looks over to Luke and Thalia, she will need prove if she wants them to even consider talking to a god. It’s the easiest way and there is no reason for it to not work. Annabeth grabs the bracelet, fingers tighten around her hand and gently tug her forwards. She stumbles, one foot outside of the sanctuary and is then pulled all the way out.
“I think I know a better place to rest than this, not that it is not safe. But Pan’s domain lacks certain comforts. “ Athena smiles.
“Tha-“
The goddess hushes her with a finger to her lips. “Let me show it to you first. Maybe we can make some improvements so that your friends will feel more at ease.”
Annabeth can’t just leave them here, but if she takes care of everything else, after causing them so much trouble. She can trust Athena, Annabeth’s father might not have wanted her but her mother had to.
“I am going to leave them a note,” Annabeth says. But she doesn’t have paper or a pen. Or even like chalk.
“I think my little friend can help with that.” Athena puts the bracelet back around Annabeth’s wrist and lets the owl on her shoulder move down her arm. “Just tell it what you want them to know if they wake up before we are back.”
Annabeth might have stared at the owl a little too long. She has to keep it short no matter how cute the things is when it puffs up its little feathers.
“I’m with my mom, I am okay. We’ll be back to get you later,” she decides on. The owl hops onto Annabeth shoulder, tickles her cheek with its feather and then returns to Athena. Who whispers something to it’s head.
“Now,” Athena offers a hand that Annabeth does not hesitate to take. “Let me show you the one place where my siblings leave me be.”
Thalia wakes to a scream. She’s up on her feet in a second, spear in hand and finds no fight and no monsters. But the scream wasn’t far away and Annabeth is gone. Luke blinks for only a second before he is up too and the satyr who calls himself a protector takes the longest to return to his senses. This isn’t even the woods they went to sleep in. Where are they?
“You said it was safe!” Thalia shoots at him.
“It is, but if she stepped out.” he rakes a hand through his hair. “We have to find her.” The satyr looks confused for a second, long enough for Luke to grab his weapon and then his expression turns even more shocked. “No, no, no. We shouldn’t be here, we can’t be here.”
“Oh, you know where we are then.” Luke grabs his shoulder. “Care to enlighten us?”
Grover shakes him off. “It smells weird. Like the air is far, far too clean and we are definitely in the Ancient lands.”
“Your sanctuary teleported us to Greece?” Thalia asks him. She’s too shocked to react much more than that. Because this should even by weird myth standards not be possible.
Grover looks to the ground. “The air wouldn’t be this clean in Greece either. But maybe I am just wrong about that.”
“We have not time travelled okay, maybe it's just a place no one lives in,” Luke states. “And no matter, we have to find Annabeth.”
There are trees here but not as much thicket as in the other woods. No tracks, no hints of anyone or anything being there. A monster with wings probably. Whatever it is will want to lure them in too, why get one demigod when you could get three.
Thalia nearly drops her spear when she sees it. A pink piece of fabric, ripped off by a broken branch. Entirely out of place here. A part of Annabeth’s quilted vest. Her hand shakes a little when she takes it, no blood at least or dirt.
“There’s more over there,” Luke calls a few trees farther. As if someone shredded Annabeth’s vest apart, but the lighter piece has no blood either. A trail, guiding them through the woods.
“A trap,” Luke says.
“We’ll walk right into it like last time,” she agrees.
Annabeth is seven what else would a monster do but use her as bait. Grover sticks close to them, but it’s very obvious that he himself is worried. Whover thought him someone who can protect them should have though that over a few more times. She feels watched, which can only mean they are getting closer. Can’t these monster just leave them alone?
The forest because it is one even if it doesn’t entirely look the same, gives way to a grove. Of olive trees.
“We are getting closer to something,” Grover says.
She knows, it’s a shift in the air she feels down to her bones and she can see a building in the distance. There is no longer a trail of cloth to follow but this is the place they’ll have to go. Small animals hide high up in the trees, probably birds but she can’t focus enough on them to say for sure. Luke’s jaw tightens once they get closer to the building. It looks vaguely ancient Greek, but not in the way people tried to replicate later. Every single inch of stone has been covered in paint. Gold adorns some of the pillars and the whole thing lacks doors while it has multiple entryways. Not a good place for a trap at all. But the more concerning thing is what the paint shows, scenes from myth one can assume. And olive branches and owls. The statue of which gods stands on the altar is not even a question.
“It’s probably abandoned and long desecrated,” Grover mentions.
Thalia looks at him, he has to know that at least. She hopes. “Maybe, or maybe it’s something else. We’ll have to be careful.”
A presence awaits them here, it does not feel like a monster but far too close to it to be a god. Because while she won’t say that the term isn’t applicable to the them either, they won’t let it be this similar. The temple is far too clean and the paint to fresh either way for Grover to be right, maybe a few decades old at most. Only a guess though. The thing lurks in the corners of her peripheral vision. It will only attack once the trap is sprung, only reveal itself once it has all of them in it’s claws.
Tapestries, in all states from long finishes to barely started embellish all the walls, vases fill the gaps and, on a pedestal, stands a statue of Athena. Painted to resemble the goddess in a far too lifelike way to be comfortable. It is only as tall as a human. Not as grand as some others she has heard of. But below it is a nest. Not made out of sticks and mud but fine fabrics. On it, cushioned with blankets and pillows is Annabeth. Her eyes closed, body curled up on one side. There is bracelet around her wrist she has never seen before and someone did her hair. A thing Thalia has done till now but why would a monster care to know how to do any hair? And why do it?
“Keep an eye on our surroundings,” she says it mostly to Luke. Thalia’s steps sound far too loud as she runs. “Annabeth! Annabeth, wake up!” She only has to shake her shoulder a little for it to work, she’s okay.
“Oh, you found your way on your own,” the girl mumbles and rubs her eyes with the back of her fingers.
“Found our way? What do you-? Doesn’t matter we have to get out of here.” Luke tells her.
“Are you okay?” Thalia asks, Annabeth is still only looking at her. “Luke’s right though. Before the monster comes back.”
“No you don’t understand, there is no monster. I left you a message” Annabeth grabs her arm and shakes her head. “We were going to go back, she promised. I kind of just fell asleep”
“She?” Thalia questions.
My mother,” Annabeth says in the moment Grover says, “Athena”
Golden bars shoot up from the ground to close off the exists and not even Luke is fast enough to get out. Wait no, not bars, large golden spears keep them here. She should have been far more suspicious of this place, its a far better trap than it seems.
“I do apologize for the deception, my child. But it was simply the easiest way to get them out of the sanctuary and lead them here. Your friends have lived through far too much to be entirely logical about the circumstances,” the statue speaks. It, no she sits down on the pedestal, one leg at a 90 degree angle the other just hanging down. Athena looks like her daughter but the most notable difference are the wings that unfurl out of nowhere behind her back.
“You will let us go,” Thalia orders. She does not point her spear at Athena, not yet. Though she’d very much like to but Annabeth probably won’t approve and she has not been hurt. Has likely not even been actually kidnapped. Which seven year wouldn’t leave with their parent. So she’ll stay her hand, for now.
“Oh, I have no want to keep you here sister or my nephew for that matter,” Athena states. Her sandals hit the stone without a sound. “But neither father nor my brother would approve of me letting their miracles run around the land without oversight”
“You said this place is safe” Annabeth looks hurt and she sounds hurt.
“And it is, but one should not keep children from their parents”
Thalia leverages her spear at this thing. She knows enough of the gods to realize nothing here is right. Maybe it is only an elaborate trap. A monster playing house with the one of them who has any want to do so up until she’ll kill her.
“You’re not her mother. I know the gods and I won’t let you hurt her,” Thalia says. She can win this.
“You know, I thought a monster would be smarter than that,” Luke spits out. “We know the gods do not care. So why not drops this charade.”
“Wait, no, no, no. You really, really shouldn’t. That is not a monster,” Grover cuts in. He doesn’t attempt to physically stop them, but if she waits longer to act he just might.
The monster sighs, snaps a spear into her hand and pulls her helmet down into her face.
“Mom, you promised you wouldn't hurt them.” Annabeth has halfway climbed out of the nest, only for a wing to push her back into the blankets.
“And I won’t, this will be over very quickly,” the grin on the monster’s face makes her words seem mocking.
But as it turns out they are just are a correct assessment. Thalia is not entirely sure how she loses her spear and shield, or how Luke ends up on his side on the ground.
“That is actually Athena,” Grover has the decency to sound sorry. “I apologize, we didn’t mean to intrude.”
“No, we did,” Luke cuts him off.
He is then promptly ripped from the ground. Thalia’s eyes frantically search for her weapons but they are nowhere to be found. A god is holding Luke up by the front of his shirt.
“Look what I just caught myself. Pan was right for once, we got a little gift,” Hermes chuckles.
In addition to the expected feathers at his ankles, he also sports another pair at his ears. If she can get past Athena and to Annabeth first, or maybe Hermes would be easier. These gods are more than wrong, Grover half voiced a suspicion that seems more and more likely. Which doesn’t make it make any more sense. She’s pretty sure there is no god of time who’d use their power to send them somewhere else and even if more than that isn't right. Luke is understandably busy screaming and Annabeth just seems entierly unsure what to do, even now that Athena has sat down on the edge of her nest. Yelling will only make her feel better.
“You seem weirdly agitated around your parents.”
She does not know the voice, has never heard it before. But she knows who it belongs to. Zeus gives her a smile and she decidedly does not move. It took her time to realize but the only way these can be the Greek gods is if they are different gods altogether. In modern times there is no need to dress how statues portrayed them anymore. And no version of them she is at all familiar with would have ever been like this.
“if you don’t put me down, I will rip your throat out,” Luke yells.
“I’d very much like to see you try.” Hermes is only amused by it.
“I want an explanation, right now,” she says.
“One of your gods, while dead where you were born, still lives here and his domain desperately reached for the next deity to cling onto. I believe you would not disagree with the assessment that your parents have proven themselves unworthy of you. Both divine and not. You deserve to be treated like the children of the gods that you are,” he finishes his speech.
“We deserve to be able to leave, we don’t need parents. We are fine on our own.” They especially have no need of help from any gods.
Zeus headshakes is eerily similar to that of a disapproving teacher, only difference is that he is more of a threat. “You are far too young and have been hurt far too much, but I would be a terrible parent if I abandoned any child of mine.”
Hermes being the fastest of the gods, apparently does not mean the others even attempt to follow any laws of physics. Zeus grabs her by the upper arms and headbutting a god yields next to no results.
“Let me go!”
“Absolutely not, but I believe we should return to Olympus. You too Athena, we need to introduce these three to the rest of our family.”